


Teenage Fantasy

by marlboro_reds



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coming of Age, M/M, Mechanic Levi, Older Eren Yeager, POV First Person, Pining Levi, Slow Burn, Small Towns, Wayward Eren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:53:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27696545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlboro_reds/pseuds/marlboro_reds
Summary: How to deal when a crush you developed as a young teen shows no signs of letting up as you grow older.
Relationships: Furlan Church/Isabel Magnolia, Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 20
Kudos: 45





	1. Teenage Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: when your best friend's older brother awakens your rampant bisexuality.

I’m disgustingly hungover. 

My head is pounding something fierce and my mouth is dry. I cover my face as light pours in through my cracking eyelids. Fucking Is didn’t shut the curtains. I glance over at her, trying to block the rays assaulting my eyelids. How this isn’t bothering her is beyond me. She’s lying facing me, head threatening to encroach onto my pillow. Dried dribble sticks to her chin. It’s gross, but I find it pretty cute. 

It was her eighteenth birthday yesterday, but in my heart she’ll forever be like a kid sister. She moved in down the road from me when I was ten. My uncle was the local builder, her dad was the town’s new GP. Doctor Jaeger’s practice ripped some gnarly holes after a flood the first autumn they were here, and Kenny got hired to fix the place. I met Is when I was hanging around the lakefront after school one day, waiting for Kenny to finish up. She was an annoying, boisterous little girl a year younger than me with bright red hair and scrappy pigtails. The first time we spoke, I told her to piss off. She pulled the finger, but she didn’t leave. Instead, she bullied her way into my life. We spent that entire season loitering in the park on the swings, or buying bags of chips from the corner store with her pocket money. When winter hit, when the roads got icy and chill bit at my fingers through my worn gloves, we retreated to the Jaeger household. Kenny hardly had money to run heaters during the cold season, so I’d never really experienced warmth like this in my life, both from the crackling open fire in the hearth in the Jaeger’s lounge, and the comforting, familial atmosphere. Grisha was stoic, but well-meaning and polite. Carla treated me like an extra kid straight away, and Issy was her usual bratty self at home, bickering endlessly with her older brother Eren. I soaked it all in, and it became a crucial template for my development. The Jaeger family hasn’t been able to get rid of me since. I’m here for Sunday night dinners, New Years’ Eves, birthdays. They like my dry sense of humour, and the way I always stick around for the cleanup. 

The cleanup. Shit. I pull out my phone and check the time. 9:32. About three hours until Carla and Grisha come back. They cleared out for Is’s eighteenth on the strict condition that the house be good as new upon return. One of Issy’s school friends was puking in the rose bushes last night, and I know for a fact there’s a Jaegermeister stain on the white carpet in the lounge, which, though fitting, will hardly be appreciated. I flirt with the idea of waking up the birthday girl to help me, but she’ll probably do a half-arsed job and whine the whole time. What’s that saying? If you want something done right, you’d better do it yourself? Ugh. I sit up and brush hair out of my eyes. I’m sweaty from sleeping in my jeans, and cigarette ash has burrowed into my t-shirt, but I’ll deal with that later. The state of the house is a more pressing concern. 

It’s a beautiful day. The sunlight is less bright in the hallway because of large, stained glass windows at one end that color the white walls in pinks, blues and reds. Family photos are illuminated, cute ones of Eren and Issy, older ones of Grisha and Carla’s wedding. My favourite is at the end of the hall, right by the staircase. Me, Farlan and Is sitting outside on Christmas Day last year. I’m lighting up while Issy admonishes me, and Furlan’s laughing in that way he does when he’s had a shitton of beer. We’re a mismatched trio. Furlan’s preppy, Issy is a spoiled rich kid with a rebellious streak, and I’m the epitome of a working class boy. Nonetheless, our combination is killer. They’re my best friends. Christ, why do I always get so sentimental when I’m hungover? Probably trying to put off doing any hard work. 

I’m just starting down the stairs when I hear creaking. I pause, and listen. Sounds like footsteps in the kitchen. My first thought is one of light panic. Carla and Grisha have come home early, and are stunned into silence by the feral state of the place. I peer down, and spot at least seven discarded cans on the wood flooring of the entranceway. This is the last time I party with high schoolers. I swear to God, they’re animals. 

There are two options here. Either I face up to the chaos, or I flee the scene and tell Issy I walked home last night. The second option will allow me to keep up my responsible image with her parents. Surely she was so drunk she won’t remember me kipping in her bed. But this makes me feel a little guilty. If I go now, manage to get out without anyone noticing, the place won’t be clean for hours. I waver, but the eagerness to please the Jaegers eventually wins over. I make my way down the stairs slowly, anticipating trouble when I reach the ground floor. Rehearsed apologies flick through my head on a Roladex.

The creaking stops when I get into the kitchen. The fridge door is open, obscuring whoever is looking inside. This is strange. Surely Carla and Grisha’s first response to finding their house trashed wouldn’t be heading straight to the fridge. Surely neither of them would be humming so cheerily either. Who is this? Some gatecrasher who hung around too long last night? Shoes stick out from under the door. Dirty black lace-up Vans. The same as mine upstairs. Hang on a minute. It can’t be.

“Eren?” 

The fridge door closes slowly. My heart palpitates a little, and I curse it. I should have grown out of this. But when I hear that familiar voice, feel it reverberate in my stomach, it’s clear I’ve done everything but forget. 

“Yo, Levi.” 

There he is. Eren Jaeger, in the flesh, eating pickles straight out of a jar with his bare hands. He looks just the same, with his straight-legged jeans that he turns up the hems of and his layers upon layers of shirts. Such a city slicker, as always. But his hair’s grown longer too, and it’s tied back in a bun. I can see a tattoo peeking out above his sock. He munches with an open mouth as he grins at me, unaware of how much his presence is throwing me for a loop as per usual. I stutter to get a sentence out. 

“Aren’t you… Aren’t you meant to be in college?” 

He takes a bite. “I decided it wasn’t for me. I dropped out.” 

“Again?” 

His eyes roll as he puts the pickle jar down on the bench. Juice sloshes out of the sides, leaving a wet mark around its bottom. More for me to clean. “Yes, again. You’re the third person to ask me that in the last twenty four hours. Throw something more original out.” He wipes his fingers down his t-shirt. “You got a cigarette?” 

I stand there gaping before I register his question, and start hunting through my pockets when it finally loads. My brain’s gone full dial-up by this point. I palm my pack and hold it out to him. He beams and takes it between long, tan fingers. 

“Let’s go outside and catch up then. I haven’t seen you in months.” 

I’m well aware. He’s halfway through the porch doors before enough blood returns to my brain for me to follow him. I was not prepared for this today. My stomach churns and clenches as I look at his shoulders, the back of his neck, his ankles. I can pinpoint each freckle on him, draw them together in my head. The urge to run my hands over his lines makes my fingers itch.

Because Eren Jaeger is a vice I need to build up resistance to. It was okay over summers, when I saw him every day. Sure, swims in the lake with his family was an activity that bordered on torture, but if I kept my eyes away from the front of his trunks I could usually keep myself under control. He looked amazing in his high school uniform, but we were in different grades and I spent so much time skipping classes that I hardly ever ran into him there. Watching the senior football team play was simply out of the question. I don’t know when I realised that Issy’s older brother is a genuine sex god. Maybe it was always there, this base attraction, and it took me a few years of confusion to pinpoint it. Once he headed off to college, I thought I’d forget. I had a successful year, dated a girl in my grade, dabbled in sex. I thought my bisexual nightmare was over until he appeared again one day in the kitchen at the Jaeger house, announcing he’d dropped out of his law course. The next year, it was fine arts. This time, it’s a philosophy major he’s left behind in the dust. Every time I see him again it throws me for a loop, because it’s like I forget how wonderful he is. Not even just his looks. He’s funny, he’s cool, he’s got great style that I constantly copy. He’s world-wise in a way I’ll never be, and it makes me feel like a bit of a bumpkin, but he never talks down to me. He always has time for me. I look up to him so much. 

Every gesture is so familiar as he sits down on one of the patio chairs outside, flexing his shoulders and spreading his knees far apart. He tips his head back and breathes in deeply as I sit down next to him, looking at his profile. How he’s so dark in spring, I’ll never know. Issy is as pale as me. 

“Fuck, it smells good out here. So much fresher than the city.” He cracks an eye open as he lights a cigarette with a lighter he pulls out of his back pocket. An ugly Zippo with a weed leaf engraved on it from his stoner days in high school. It’s so nostalgic, and so lame. I laugh. 

“Still got that piece of junk, huh?” 

“Hey, don’t be rude!” He’s smiling. “It’s my lucky lighter. Couldn’t have passed my exams if I didn’t find this baby, I swear on my dad’s life.”

“You flunked three of them and had to spend the whole summer in school.” 

He takes a drag. “Nothing gets past you.” Sunlight’s pouring down on us now, and his eyelashes create shadows on his skin as he looks at me. “So what’s going on, anyway? Are you and Issy together yet?”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes now. “Get fucked.” He cackles. This is his favourite topic to tease me on, but I don’t think he’s really joking at all. I’ve been little-brother-in-law zoned since the beginning. “It was her birthday last night and we had a few drinks, so I slept over.” Eren waggles his eyebrows at this, but my icy glare shuts him down. He’s still smirking as he surveys the garden, looking like he’s noticing the mess for the first time. I can spot vomit floating in the pool. It almost makes me throw up in my mouth. Eren’s threshold for disgust is much higher. In fact, he looks almost impressed by the state his childhood home is in. 

“You guys went hard! Ugh, Is has it so easy. I was never allowed to have parties like this in high school, dad said I was too irresponsible.” 

“Didn’t really stop you though, did it?” I say. “Remember that weekend Carla and Grisha went camping and you had that rager? Didn’t you fall through the sliding door?” 

He laughs. “I don’t think I’ve bled so much in my life. I still have such badass scars.” Trust Eren to forget how traumatic this situation really was. Issy called me in tears, and I drove Eren to the after hours clinic. My back seat looked like a murder scene. “Come to think of it, wasn’t it you who saved me that night? Mom and dad were so furious, they wanted me to buy you flowers. I thought you’d think that was lame, so I got you…” He squints at me, wracking his brains. “What was it again?” 

“Fresh Golf. You were deep in your Odd Future phase.” I still wear this shirt at least once a week. It’s my most prized possession. 

“That’s right! Shit, that was generous. I’d ordered it for myself and by the time I got around to getting a replacement, they’d sold out. You still have it?” 

“It must be in my closet somewhere.”

“Cool.” His smile is so lovely. Then I watch it falter ever so slightly. “Where are mom and dad, by the way?” His eyes dart nervously to the second storey, like he’s expecting them to be standing in the windows staring down at us like apparitions. 

“Staying in a lakefront house for the night, I think. They’re coming back in a few hours.” 

Eren rubs his face with a hand. “Seeing dad’s going to be a nightmare.” 

I don’t think I can disagree with this one. “Yeah, he’ll be mad.” 

He sighs deeply. I think about the last time Eren dropped out. Grisha wasn’t too keen on his foray into fine arts in the first place, but law school had always seemed like a bad fit for him. Eren’s skill was undeniable. He’d been a great painter during school, and he’d started to get into some bizarre, abstract sculpture which was completely beyond my level of comprehension. Some pieces sold at a local gallery for a decent price, which helped convince Grisha that art was a viable pursuit. After months of relentless harassment, he finally submitted and footed the bill. When, eight months later, Eren was back at the kitchen table complaining about how restrictive he found the establishment and how he felt his lecturers were forcing him to “compromise his artistic integrity”, Grisha lost it in a way I’d never seen. They didn’t speak for two weeks. Eren deciding he wanted to go back and study philosophy was a further cause of tension in the household, but once again, his dogged determination helped him convince everyone. He read so much Marx and Kropotkin even I began finding him insufferable, but we were all glad he had found another passion to fixate on. In retrospect, the pattern should have been clear. His enthusiasm is always boundless, until it’s not. He’s endlessly passionate, until he’s flighty. To me, it’s equal parts endearing and frustrating. 

Eren’s good mood seems to have entirely dissipated as he flicks his cigarette away into Carla’s geraniums. “It’s been lovely knowing you, Levi. He’s going to kill me and throw my body in the lake.” This isn’t too hard to picture. Grisha has an angry, impulsive streak he shares with Eren, as well as the perfect dinghy for this kind of murder.

“Why did you drop out, Eren? Couldn’t you go back?” 

He crosses one leg over the other the way he always does when he’s about to spit some words I don’t understand. Rodin’s The Thinker has nothing on Eren’s Philosophising in a Messy Backyard. “Nah, it was just such bullshit, you know?” He sighs. “Learning about racism, sexism and colonialism from an institution that encompasses and structurally perpetuates each of these? It just felt so wrong to support that financially. I feel like this just cuts to the heart of all my problems at college, ya know?” 

I nod like I know. I truly have no idea. 

“The institution is just another mouthpiece of our capitalist system, shaping me into an aloof, out-of-touch bourgeois lapdog. I felt like I was losing my identity in order to try and scrape good grades, and I just don’t want to do that. I want to be free.” He pushes stray hairs out of his eyes in a dramatic gesture. I light a cigarette, not sure what to say. To me, he looks pretty damn free. I can’t even afford college, not that I have a clue what I’d study. Academia’s never been my strong point. I try to change tack, bring up something that makes a little more sense. Small town life, perhaps? 

“So what will you do now? Hang around here for a while?” 

“Yeah, figure out my next steps. If dad will let me.” He’s right to be concerned about this, I think. Grisha might have him living in a tent in the park as punishment. At least it’s not winter. “Whatever, we’ll deal with that when we come to it, aye?” He stretches, trying to lighten the mood. “Hey, need help tidying up? You can tell me about last night. Looks like it was fun.” 

If anyone’s worse at cleaning than Issy, it’s Eren. But I’d be stupid to refuse his company, especially when my palpitations have finally started to slow. Looking at him head-on is still dangerous, but his presence is so familiar that our conversation is flowing naturally. 

“Sure. Thank you.” 

He gives me his best Calvin Klein model grin and my stomach does flips. I hope I survive the next hours.

* * *

We have so much fun. Picking up cans and bottles is first, then deep cleaning floorboards and carpets. I make a home-made stain remover and cleanse the lounge. Eren marvels at my skill, and I silently hope he’s recognising my strong housewife material. He puts on music and performs karaoke renditions as I scrub around his feet. I hose down the pavement outside. He uses pool mesh to try and fish the floating vomit out, and inevitably falls in right next to it. This is truly the most hilarious thing I think I’ve ever seen, him paddling around aimlessly like a golden retriever, until he pulls himself out and takes his layers off. Tattoos grace his chest and stomach. I spend the next ten minutes desperately avoiding making eye contact with him. When we finish up I send him inside for a shower, and he tracks water all over my freshly-mopped floor. He’s goddamn lucky he’s so good-looking, or else he’d surely be dead. I wipe it up, and take a breather on the couch. There’s still a slight smell in the air, but nothing the open patio doors won’t clear away. I think the Jaegers will be pleasantly surprised. 

Issy appears in the doorway, wearing Eren’s baggy Aphex Twin hoodie that she always adopts when he’s away. Last night’s makeup has bled all over her face, and her hair is a mess. She’s frowning. 

“What the hell is this shitty music?” 

Shitty? Eren’s taste is impeccable. I guess she’s hungover. I grab his phone from the arm of the couch beside me and turn it down, stinging slightly from the insult like she offended me personally. 

“Just some playlist of Eren’s.” 

Is wrinkles her nose at me. “He torments me with his bad music enough when he’s home, Levi. Can you not play it while he’s away, too?” She starts to pad towards the kitchen. I realise I probably need to fill her in on something. 

“Eren’s back home, Issy.” She stops dead in her tracks. “He dropped out. Again.” 

I don’t know what I expected her expression to look like, but it wasn’t this. She’s grinning absolutely gleefully. The makeup around her eyes takes on the shape of a raccoon mask.

“You’re joking.” 

I’m not known for being funny. “Dead serious.” 

She laughs so hard she reaches out for the door frame for support. “Oh, that is just so classic. He wants to be written out of the will that much, huh?” She wheezes for breath, leans her back against the wall. “What an idiot.” 

Eren chooses this moment to exit the downstairs bathroom. I hear bare feet padding on the hallway floor. Please, if there is a God up there in the sky, I’m begging you. I don’t ask for much. Just make sure Eren’s wearing a shirt. 

My prayers, unsurprisingly, are not answered. He’s shirtless and dripping again, a towel slung low on his hipbones. Long hair suits him so well, especially when it’s pushed back like it is now. His appearance just makes Issy laugh harder. He’s trying to look stern, but the corner of his mouth is twitching. 

“What did you say about me being written out of the will, you horrible girl? That’s hardly funny.” 

“Haaaah…” Issy takes a deep breath to try and steady herself. “Just practising… Laughing my way to the bank, you know?” 

Eren cracks a real smile. “That’s so lame.” And then he looks her up and down. “You’re lame! Don’t wear artist merch if you don’t even listen to them. Take my jersey off! I spent too much money on that for you not to know who Richard D. James is.” 

“I’m glad to see college hasn’t changed your snobby ways, bro.” Issy wipes fake tears of sentimentality out of her eyes. 

This is something I love about spending time with the Jaeger family. Just watching them get on. Despite the tension between Eren and Grisha being palpable at times, everyone shares the same sense of humor. They riff off each other so well. I know how much Is missed her older brother, so no matter how invested she seems in laughing at his dire financial future, their reunion is a sweet scene. Him half-naked, her looking a hot mess with drool still stuck to her face. It warms my heart to see them together again. For a second, I envision us toasting his return around the table, Grisha at the head, Carla bringing in dishes from the kitchen. It’s so dear to me that it almost hurts. I love my second family.

And then the door opens in real time, startling all of us. The air's suddenly thick, like something from a horror film. We all know a storm's brewing. Eren turns around. From my angle, I watch his profile as his expression changes from the fond smile he was giving Issy to a more sheepish, anxious one. He raises his left hand in a half-hearted wave. 

“Ayo, dad.” Dead. Dead silence. Eren’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I’m back. They… um… let me out early?” 

I try to cover my snort. Somehow, I don’t think Grisha’s going to buy that one.


	2. Analog 2

The deafening silence in the Jaeger household is almost crushing, until Grisha’s voice rips through it. It comes out a harsh bark, a sound I wasn’t even aware he could make. Issy, Eren and I all jump. “No. You’ve got to be joking.” Eren just stands there. This must be the first time I’ve ever seen him speechless. You can almost see the cogs in his brain whirring as he desperately tries to come up with something to say. Grisha’s not going to give him any time. “Out. Get out! Back to the city right now.” He’s still tucked around the corner from me in the entranceway, but it’s clear as day that he’s fuming. I don’t need to see his face. 

Eren’s fuel has always been other people’s rage, and now he’s picking it up from Grisha, he’s bristling. His posture changes - he stands up straighter, flexes his shoulder blades. “No, dad.” This is said with such gumption I would struggle to argue with it. “It’s too late. Administration finalised it on Friday. I’ve packed up, and someone else has filled my room. All my shit’s in the car. I’m back for good.” 

Carla sprints through into the lounge, wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and an anxious expression. She shoots me a smile, and then boosts off to the kitchen. Good call, I reckon. Nobody wants to be caught in the crossfire of what’s about to ensue. I should probably follow suit and head off home, but I don’t want to dodge past Grisha in the hallway. Issy seems completely impervious to the tension that’s filling her house - she comes and sits next to me on the couch with her bottle of water and sets her bare legs up on my lap. All she needs is a bowl of popcorn, and she’s primed to watch the show. How Eren getting in trouble gives her so much boundless joy, I will never understand. I guess it’s a sibling thing. 

Grisha’s voice is a low growl now. “You promised me, son. This time you were going to stick it out.” 

Eren uncrosses his arms and starts gesticulating. “I know, dad, but it was so fucking shit! I-”

“Watch your language.” 

Eren rolls his eyes. “Jesus. It was bad! It sucked! Better?” He plays the stroppy teen so well I’ve fully forgotten he’s twenty-one. “You just wouldn’t get it. You went to college before Reagenomics, for God’s sake!”

Grisha interjects again. “Don’t swear under my roof.”

Eren’s close to foot-stamping now. Nothing annoys him like being interrupted mid-political rant. “Come on, that hardly counts as swearing when we’re atheist as all hell. College is so industrialised now! Sure, the content we were learning was interesting but I felt like our assignments were more focused towards turning us into mindless corporate drones or human resources slogs than free thinkers. I don’t see how learning from an institution who prioritise their bottom line and amassing capital before their students’ actual well-being could ever really help me to make a difference or do anything truly meaningful in the world!” He pants when he reaches the end of this tirade from the exertion of pushing it out. 

Grisha’s not having it. “So you think skipping out on every degree you’ve attempted before you’ve even finished the first year is going to help you do that?”

Eren employs the tonal shift now, talking quieter and slower to make himself sound more reasoned. He sighs. “I don’t understand why you get so angry at me for giving things a go. I try my hardest, I get good grades. I mean, I think this time I’ve had an epiphany, you know? College just isn't for me. If I want to challenge the capitalist system, I can’t be associating myself with the intellectual bourgeois class.”

Grisha laughs at this, a loud, booming laugh. And he’s on the move, pushing past Eren to get into the lounge. He gestures at Eren in an exasperated fashion. “Eren, look at you.” Then he spins around the living room staring up at the rafters, as if looking for some semblance of patience up there. “Look at this house you live in. Look at your non-existent student loan. You’re bourgeois to a T…” He interrupts his manic pointing when he spots me sitting on the couch. “Oh, hi, Levi.”

I want to vanish into the floor right now. He’s trying to shoot me a friendly smile, but his eyes are scary angry. Just say something innocuous, Levi. “Hi Mr. Jaeger. Nice weekend?”

A muscle in his face twitches. “It was. Until five minutes ago.” Then he reels back to face the resident weekend-ruiner and resumes shouting, sarcasm dripping heavy off each word. “So, Eren, please continue. Tell me how living in your parents house rent-free aligns you with the working class struggle. You’ve never even worked a day in your life.” 

Eren looks indignant. “I worked at Shadis’s store!”

“Shadis’s store?” I’m actually worried Grisha might pass out, he’s so red. Blood vessels are sticking out of his forehead. “For two weeks, and you were late to every shift. And he told me afterwards that you were light-fingered with the snacks!”

Issy snorts. Eren shoots her a betrayed look. 

“I ate like three Moro bars. I got hungry! Dad!”

Grisha shakes his head, and sits down on the edge of his armchair. He takes his glasses off and rubs moisture from his face. When he speaks again, he’s not shouting. He just sounds exhausted. “I don’t know how I managed to raise such a spoiled brat, quite frankly. I blame myself. Why can’t you be more responsible? Like Jean or Mikasa, they’ve both almost finished their degrees. Armin’s passed his bar exam. Or Levi!” He looks at me and I gulp. Please no. Grisha keeps going. “He’s always worked hard, even during high school.” 

Eren looks at me too and scoffs. “I’m pretty sure Levi’s attendance was sitting at about 30%, dad.” Then he mouths a silent apology. What a dick. 

Grisha takes great umbridge to this statement. “Levi also spent every single afternoon working at the mechanic. And Saturdays. Since he was fourteen!” I don’t like where this is going, but I hardly want to jump into the fray. I just sit there, mouth gaping like a goldfish. Issy sips loudly on her water bottle. Eren’s getting irate again. 

“Don’t you dare start bringing that up like it’s a good thing. That wasn’t normal. No kid should have to have worked like that.” 

Okay. That’s my cue to head out. I’m not exactly comfortable having my life story pushed around like a pawn in this fight. I push Is’s legs off me and stand up abruptly, but Eren and Grisha’s fight has erupted into an incomprehensible shouting match and they’re blind to any movement in the room except for each other’s wild gestures. Goose bumps are starting to rise on Eren’s skin, but he’s far too caught up to notice. I don’t want to duck between them, so I head out the back instead. I’ll wait this out in the garden. Issy shoots me a quick smile, but she’s either too hungover or too invested in her family drama to follow me, so I shove my hands in my pockets and march off. 

The door to the patio is open, and the breeze is flowing through gently, blowing at the white linen curtains. One glance outside reveals Carla sitting on one of the patio chairs. She’s reading, but she looks up when she spots me and waves. I sit down next to her, and pull out my pack. 

“Do you mind?” 

She eyes me sideways. “You know I mind, Levi. But I let you, because I love you.” 

Carla is a goddess. I’d die for her. I’ve smoked for a long time now, a bad habit I picked up from Kenny. I tried to hide it from the Jaegers for a while by sneaking out in the middle of dinners and movie nights on the pretence of needing a shit. She caught on pretty much straight away, and followed me out one blustery night. We had a little heart to heart, crouched hidden in the bushes away from the windows. I shared some stuff and cried for the first time since I was a little kid. Since then, she’s always let me off the hook, and even keeps a cute little ashtray she found in a hospice shop on the patio for me. It warms my heart because it makes me feel even more like part of the family. She still rags on Eren endlessly for picking it up in art school, though. Perks of being family-adjacent include being able to get away with a lot. 

She’s eyeing me pretty intently as I pull one out of the pack this time. I give her a cheeky grin. 

“What? You want one?” 

There’s a true internal battle going on in her head right now. She whips her hat off and tosses it down on the ground. “You know what? Desperate times. Hand one over.” 

I’m in shock. So in shock I just do what she says. Pass the lighter, pass the dart. Watching her light up is like watching a baby fawn trying to stand up for the first time. She breathes in, lets out a small puff, breathes in again and coughs. 

“Disgusting habit.” I laugh, ready to take the smoke back, but she only hands me my lighter. She’s smirking at me. “You know I used to smoke, in college? I’ve almost forgotten how.” 

This does not at all fit in with the straight-edge image I’ve concocted of her in my head. “I had no idea.” 

“Nobody knows. I used to hide it from Grisha when we first got together. Don’t tell anyone, okay? Especially not Eren, he’ll be so unimpressed.” 

I can only imagine how he’d go off, so I nod. I keep her secrets, she keeps mine. It’s only fair. We settle back into our chairs together, both puffing away like chimneys. Sounds of shouting carry through the house. She sighs deeply. 

“I didn’t need this today. I don’t know what we’re going to do with that kid.” I watch her ash into my little tray. Wind blows loose hairs on her head. She looks so weary, I almost wonder if I should give her a hug. 

“It was never going to last, was it? Him and college?” 

She laughs a sad laugh. “No, I don’t think so. It’s a shame. He’s a smart boy, but he’s just so flighty. I wonder if we’ve indulged him too much.” 

It is true that Eren and Issy get the most love from their parents, and the most support. They get away with almost everything. But I don’t know if I’d say that’s a bad thing. I tell Carla as much, and she gives me such a lovely smile. 

“That means a lot, Levi. Maybe he just needs more time to figure out who he is. I just don’t know how much longer Grisha’s going to put up with it. I’m sick of them butting heads like this.” 

I put a hand on her shoulder, and she leans into it. This must be what it feels like to have a mom, I swear. I feel so lucky. 

“Grisha will come round. It’s nice to see him, anyway.” She gives me a knowing look that makes my insides writhe. Am I giving myself away a bit too much? “I mean, for the whole family to be back together again.” This clarification just makes her smile even wider. 

“It is nice to see him.” Okay, good. I was worried for a second there about what she was going to come out with. Let’s get this conversation back on track. Just a nice, chill chat between a mother and her sometimes son where we skirt around the deeper subtext that’s itching to crawl in. But this is Carla, after all. She’s never going to let me off that easy. “I like talking about him with you, Levi. Grisha’s his dad, Issy’s his sister. They see his foibles first. But you’ve always seen him through a lover’s eyes.” 

Yuck. My body rejects the weight of this statement with all of its might, most likely because it rings so true. She giggles in a way that’s so disturbingly reminiscent of Eren I almost have to do a double take. 

“I think you’ve watched him since you first met him. It’s sweet.” Oh God. Oh God oh God. I’ve never told anyone, ever. Now I’m wondering if I’ve been that bloody obvious. Carla, the angel she is, reads my mind to try and assuage my fears. “Don’t worry, nobody knows. I won’t tell.” She drops her butt and puts her hand on my knee instead. I can’t meet her eyes, I’m so embarrassed. “I just hope that now he’s home again, you’ll be kind to him. You look after Isabel so well. I think he’d be lucky to have a friend like you.” She squeezes me gently, and I finally meet her gaze. Eren’s eyes, warm and deep, on such an open face. How could I ever say no to her? 

“Sure, I’ll be there for him. You know I’d do anything for your family.”

* * *

I head home soon after me and Carla’s chat. Kiss Issy on the forehead, wave goodbye to Grisha. Eren’s nowhere to be seen. Apparently he pulled a typical Jaeger move and stormed out after thankfully throwing on some clothes from his bedroom. Shiganshina’s streets are always quiet on a Sunday afternoon, especially in this weather. Sunny and breezy has most families out on the lake, pulling up trout from its depths. I don’t much feel like going home yet so I take a walk along the shoreline, enjoying the sunlight. I realise my pale arms are so reflective I’m liable to cause snow blindness in anyone who throws a glance my way, so I try to keep to the edge of the trails, by the trees. Dogwalkers come by. I see just about everybody I know. Eren and Issy’s crazy aunt Dina gives me a wide berth. Shadis is awkward as ever, avoiding my eye even though I buy snacks from his store every other day. The local cop, Hannes, has a new girl on his arm I don’t recognise. It’s the funny thing about growing up in a small town. You know everyone’s business just as well as they know yours. It’s all I’ve ever known, so I find it a comfort. Working at the mechanic’s shop since I was fourteen means I know the make and model of just about everybody’s car, which comes in handy when I have a good look at the ones parked near the swimming hole before I decide if I feel like an afternoon skinny dip. My ex Petra’s Peugeot stands out amongst the bunch like a blaring foghorn. Best not be getting naked in front of her again. Home time it is. 

I love Shiganshina with all of my heart. It’s a beautiful lakeside town tucked in between two mountains with absolutely terrible cell phone reception. High school teachers had no complaints with this until wifi cables got rolled in and every teen started communicating on Facebook. The internet has become a cause for major dissatisfaction amongst some of the kids I grew up with, like Eren. This place has always felt small, but suddenly, it got stifling when it was easier to see what the rest of the world got up to. The mass exodus of youth in the last few years has been huge. They travel to college, to different countries, and never come back. I’ve never felt the need. If I can see everything with my fingertips, what’s the point? What am I missing by actually venturing out? I have a Netflix subscription and Instagram, and I’m pretty satisfied with it. I’ll leave being larger than life to Issy and Eren. My niche here is comfortable. Fixing people’s cars, working extra shifts as a dishy at the diner for under-the-table cash, looking after Kenny. It’s worked for me thus far. I’m a small-town guy, but at least I don’t look it. Online shopping has me covered there. 

It’s almost four when I get back to Kenny’s. The lawn’s a mess. I hung out washing yesterday, and it must have blown down in the night. I scramble around to try and salvage it, but it’s filthy with grass stains. Shit. Of course it had to be a white load. I spend the next twenty minutes in the laundry, scrubbing all the dirt off. My fingers are stinging by the time I let myself in through the back door. I trip over a few cans lying around in the hallway. Not a good sign, but not such an unusual occurrence either. Kenny’s not in the kitchen. I call out for him as I enter the lounge. 

“Kenny?”

He’s lying in the pitch dark, under a couch cushion. I hear a muffled mumble. 

“Sorry, Kenny. Speak up.” 

He lifts the cushion slightly. 

“I said shut the fuck up! I’m hungover.” 

“I know. I’m just obligated to check that you’re alive.” 

He throws the cushion at me, groaning from the exertion. It doesn’t make it far, landing a couple of feet from me. “How did you get so damn cheeky?” 

I chuckle. “Learnt from the best. Takeout tonight?” 

God, he looks haggard. How long has it been since he’s showered? “I don’t have any money, Lee. My horse didn’t win this week.” Big surprise there. 

“I’ll get it. What do you feel like?” 

“Chinese would be life-saving. I’ll get you back next week.” He collapses back down like a corpse.

Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that before. If I racked it up, I reckon his tab would stretch to the moon and back.

So there you have it. All the things to love about Shiganshina. Beautiful lake views, stunning nature trails, and a resident alcoholic. Kenny wasn’t always like this. He was a pretty great builder for a long time. He liked a drink, and he liked betting on the weekends, but it wasn’t his life. We didn’t have much money, but we got along okay. He’d drop me off school in the mornings, we’d watch MMA together on the TV at night. An accident when I was twelve was what really messed him up. He fell off a ladder and fucked his back. Working afterward was okay for a while, but he developed a chronic pain condition that made it almost impossible. He got prescribed Oxy. After that things really started to go downhill. His drinking and substance abuse started mounting up, and all of his money slipped through the cracks in his fingers. I didn’t know how bad it got until our power went out for a few days when I was thirteen. Kenny blamed it on a fault with the company, and it got turned back on after some of the food in our fridge went mouldy, but then it happened again and again. So much that I went out to get a job. The local mechanic took me in, and I’ve been earning for the household ever since. It’s sad. I see flashes of the old Kenny often. He has a wicked sense of humor, and he’s surprisingly smart. He and Eren had a conversation in my yard once about Russian literature that blew my mind. But most often, he’s craving, grumpy. It’s no Trainspotting shit. He doesn’t get violent or scary. He’s just tired, I think. There’s no capacity to think of me in his brain past the pain that he feels. That’s why hearing Eren and Grisha talk about me threw me for a loop. 

The Jaegers absolutely saved my skin. They give me the familial love that Kenny lost after his accident, and I’ll be forever grateful. But I hate to entertain the thought that they think of him as horrible and neglectful, or worse, of me as a charity case. It’s nothing that dramatic. It’s really just my life. I’m just doing what I have to do, and I’m sure anyone else in my position would do the same. I call the Chinese takeout place and give our usual order, and then sit on the porch with a beer waiting for delivery. I do wonder what to do with him sometimes. I sent him away to a rehabilitation facility for a while last year, but he didn’t cope well. By the time he was home, he was a mess. The relapse was rough. Even thinking about it is gross. I don’t want to try it again. 

I bring Kenny’s dinner to the lounge when it arrives, and head up to my room. Lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while, contemplating life. Is this what Eren feels like when he philosophises? The thought makes me laugh as I nibble away on a fried wonton. My brain’s probably a hell of a lot more stable than his is. I wonder if he’s gotten home alright. I wonder if Grisha’s even let him in the front door. At least the locksmith isn’t working on a Sunday. I find I’m actually quite enjoying my rumination, lying there with my sweet and sour pork perched on my chest. I feed noodles into my open mouth with abandon, swinging them all over my face because of lack of control. One lands on my bedspread, and that marks the end of that. I play music out of my phone, the same Spotify playlist Eren had on earlier. It’s nice, relaxing. It’s pitch black outside before I really register it, and I can’t bring myself to be bothered getting up, so I just lie there in the dark. 

My phone buzzes. The screen’s so bright that I squint when I hold it up to my face. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. 

**Eren Jaeger:** Hey, sorry for before with dad

I debate whether to open it. Unsure why I thought Eren would be the type to message only once.

 **Eren Jaeger:** I shouldn't have talked about you like that. I feel shit. I know your family situation is complicated

This is heavy. Can I be bothered? 

**Eren Jaeger:** Also I’m outside your house 

I almost trip over myself leaping off my bed. Sweet and sour pork spills everywhere. Shit. I leap over it and open my curtain a little. For sure, that’s Eren, leaning against the fence facing away from me. 

**Eren Jaeger:** Sorry to be creepy as fuck but I’m waiting for dad to fall asleep so I can sneak in and I don’t really have any other good friends around anymore 

Don’t start blushing, you loser. 

**Eren Jaeger:** If you can, it’s cold as balls and I’m in a t-shirt. Please bring a jacket or I will pass away within minutes

 **Eren Jaeger:** Levi?

Guess who’s going for an evening stroll? I message back as quickly as my hands will allow. 

**Levi Ackerman:** Gotcha. Hoodie or letterman? 

**Eren Jaeger:** Letterman please! What a throwback

 **Eren Jaeger:** They give you those even with your attendance, huh? 

**Levi Ackerman:** Careful, Jaeger, or you’re getting nothing.

 **Eren Jaeger:** See you soon!

I race down the stairs, quickly checking in the lounge. The couch is free, cushions still imprinted with Kenny’s shape. Either he’s headed off to bed, or out for more booze. The former is certainly preferable. I snatch my keys from the bowl next to the door, and head out. 

Eren’s right. It’s freezing cold. My hands stiffen up in an instant. I eye up the figure sitting down on the edge of my fence. He’s heard the clicking of my front door, and he turns around. A street lamp illuminates him. He’s smiling widely. 

“Ayo, Levi.” 

It is almost 10pm on a Sunday. Does he need to speak this loudly? I gesture for him to shush, and he gives me an apologetic face that’s so extraneously exaggerated that I can’t do anything but laugh. Am I drunk? This entire late night rendezvous has got me feeling rather giddy. I hand over my letterman, and swiftly throw my hands into my front pocket to keep them warm. 

“We should go to the lake so we don’t wake the neighbours.” 

He salutes me. I laugh again. Then he tugs on my jacket and leads the way. I took crucial Eren advice when ordering this in my senior year: always order a jacket in the largest size so you can layer up under it. It looks good on me over a thick hoodie. It looks great on him probably always. My name on his ass is something I’d like to see more often. Five minutes of walking my favourite shortcut through the bush is not enough staring action. When we get to the shore, I prep for sitting on one of the picnic benches, but he bypasses it and heads straight to the water’s edge. He throws himself down on the pebbles with a loud clatter. Why is everything he does always so boisterous? I sit down next to him much more quietly and press my knees to my chin. It’s cold. Eren doesn’t seem to feel it by the way he’s pushing the sleeves of my jacket up slightly. We listen to waves gently lapping against the dry sand. It smells like wood smoke. 

“Why is my life like a Tyler song? Meet me by the lake ‘round ten?” The moon makes his teeth shine as he speaks. 

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “You don’t ever change, huh?” 

Surprisingly, he doesn’t respond for a while. When he does, he sounds a little sad. “I don’t know. I think I do.” Pause. “Levi, I’m so sorry. All I ever do is talk shit to you, and all you ever do is listen. But can I talk my shit again?” 

I love his shit, even when it makes no sense, but I can’t say this without being a sap. “Can you go a minute without quoting rappers, please?” 

Eren enjoys me catching his reference so much that he dives into a full rendition of We Major. It’s simultaneously very cringey and very impressive. Our Eren is multifaceted. I give it some time before I cut in. 

“Stop getting distracted. You wanted to say something.” To make the situation feel less loaded, I lie down on my back with my arms behind my head. Hard pebbles dig into my spine, but it feels nice. Like a massage. Eren copies me, except he lies on his side, facing me. This is slightly too close for comfort. 

“Okay, I’ll talk my shit if you insist.” Deep breath in. “Every time I come back here, I feel like I come back for a reason. I know everyone thinks I’m lazy, or a piece of shit, or a deadbeat. Hell, you probably think I am.” I don’t want to interrupt his flow, so I stay quiet. This boy is easily distracted. “But I’m not. I just… The state of the world just really gets to me. I don’t really know where I belong in it. I know I’m not cut out for being an asshole lawyer, or an asshole artist flogging some crappy installations to second-rate galleries, or someone who writes a meaningless PhD on the hermeneutics of postmodern theory. I don’t know what to do. I’m good at a lot of things, and I know…” He pauses for a second and pats my arm. “Stop laughing, Levi. I know that makes me sound like a dick. But just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean I should pursue it. Honestly, I’m so jealous of you.” 

I look over at him in surprise. I thought Eren was so up his own ass that he didn’t have the capacity for envy. Suddenly we’re lying there, listening to the sounds of crickets, lit up by moonlight, staring into each other's eyes. Eren seems so oblivious to the romantic connotations here. All I want to do is kiss him. He just keeps talking. 

“You’ve always had such a clear path. You’re stable, hardworking and honest. And you really care about the people you love. I know you’d do anything for Is, and the rest of us.” 

I’d do anything for Is, Eren. But I’d do anything for you in a different sense. Issy is a sister. You’re something else. 

“That’s why I’m so glad you’re going to be a part of the family forever, you know?” His hard elbow’s jabbing me now. “When you and Is finally admit you’re in love, and get married?” 

Way to kill the mood, man. I look back up at the stars. There are no clouds in the sky. “It’s not like that.” 

He laughs. “Sure it’s not. But seriously, I’d kill to have any of your certainty, Levi.” Pebbles grind against each other as he shifts onto his back as well. “It’s like I have it for a while, and then I just lose it. It fucks off somewhere, and I spiral down into existential crisis mode for a while before I jump onto something new. And then it happens again. How can I just be satisfied and know I’m following the right path like you do?” 

I ponder on this for a while, but I come up blank. “I don’t know, honestly. I just am.” 

“That’s very profound.” 

I kick him. “Not all of us can be armchair philosophers like you.” He chuckles. “Why don’t you just try it, Eren? Get a crappy job here and stick it out for a while. It might give you some clarity.” 

He sighs. “It’s sensible advice, but it sounds like something my dad would say. I feel an irrational urge to rebel against him for a couple of weeks.” 

Resisting kicking him again is damn near impossible, but I manage it. Award me the Nobel Peace Prize. “Don’t be pig-headed. Unless you like sleeping outside.” 

We lie like that for a few moments. I hear a bird moving through the trees in the distance. And then Eren jumps up, so abruptly that it startles me. 

“You’re right! I need to cheer up and get my shit together.” He turns and offers me a hand. Hairs that have escaped his bun fall down over his forehead. He’s smiling so widely it makes my heart race. I wrap my fingers around his wrist, letting him pull me up. His skin is warm, and I miss the contact when we let each other go. He puts his hands in his pockets, glances down awkwardly. “Ummm… thank you so much. I know you have work tomorrow. I really appreciate this.” 

I think this might be the sixth time Eren’s ever thanked anyone. I’m floored. “Anytime.” 

He looks at me from underneath furrowed brows. “Seriously?”

Literally absolutely anytime, I think. “Within reason.” 

He cracks a grin again, slightly sheepishly. “Cool. Alright, well… See ya! Have a good day at work.” 

And he’s gone, walking down the shoreline towards his house, one arm raised in farewell. I light a cigarette as I watch him, the letters of my name rippling on his back. Words rush through my head in a repetitive mantra. 

I’m never getting over this boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy x let me know what you think!


	3. Hold Up

I hate Mondays. 

I know, I know. Everyone hates Mondays. What is this, a Garfield strip? But my dislike of Mondays is particularly pertinent today, I swear. It has plot relevance. I’m not that stale. 

My Monday has been venerably ruined by my Sunday evening. I got back from my deep and meaningful with Eren at about ten thirty, and realised I had left without cleaning my sweet and sour pork off the floor. It was dark in my room, and I stepped on it. Squished it into my rug. So I swore loudly, and spent the next half hour scrubbing it out in the laundry before I realised I still had to shower. I was a zombie by the time I lay down, my body absolutely begging for sleep, until my elbow touched a noodle I’d dropped on my bedspread earlier. My clean body tainted with cheap Chinese food. I tried meditation, counting sheep, but nothing could distract me from the sticky feeling on my arm, so I had no choice but to change my bedding and shower again. By the time I fell asleep, it must have been around one. 

And now here I am, on my first break, attempting to revive myself with my sixth instant coffee of the day. I’ve almost shit myself twice, and my heart is pounding like a jackhammer, but my energy levels are about as low as if I’d crawled out of a grave. I need some sugar, maybe even a Red Bull. And herein lies my problem. 

Shadis’s store is right opposite our lot. It is, for all intents and purposes, the only store in town. If I want an energy drink I need to go there. It’s an easy stroll that even I could handle in my state of extreme lethargy. The problem is what to do when I get there. It’s 9:47. My break ends at 10:00. The cashiers don’t change over until 10:30. And the cashier who graces Shadis’s front counters on a Monday morning is none other than my ex-girlfriend, Petra. 

Things didn’t end horribly between us. Nobody cheated, nobody took a baseball bat to the other’s car Lemonade-style. It’s just awkward. I know I was a bit of an emotionally distanced shit. She was too insecure and clingy. Very typical first high school relationship kind of vibes. All we really did was drink and have sex in weird places. I got a taste of popularity from dating our tiny school’s golden girl, she got street cred from hanging around with the bad boy. She dumped me because I wasn’t attentive enough, and I lay in my room listening to the Smiths on repeat for a week, feeling every sad syllable Morrissey crooned out deep in my soul. 

This is perhaps the one time I’d curse Shiganshina’s size. Whenever I run into her it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes she snubs me, and sometimes she’s too friendly. It’s wildly unpredictable, and I’m simply not in the mood for it today. But I’m also exhausted. I sit there on the bench outside the mechanic’s, my boiler suit tied up around my waist with a cigarette in hand, scoping out Shadis’s like I’m in Ocean’s Eleven. My mind’s made up. I need to pull off this heist. I throw my cig in my mouth, stuff my hands in my pockets, and walk over the empty lot. Sun’s bearing down on the back of my head. I crave an energy drink so bad I think I might pass out. I drop my smoke outside and walk in through the sliding doors. 

It’s wonderfully cool in here. I very deliberately make a beeline for the fridges and pick out a 473ml. What a bizarre measurement. I’ll never understand. Then I take a few deep breaths and head towards the counter. There she is. She’s very pretty, as always, though the uniform here is truly one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. I give her a rehearsed smile. There’s a moment where I think she’s going to ignore me, and I die a little inside, because how the hell am I going to pay for my drink? But then she smiles back. 

“Morning, Levi.” 

She scans it, and I chuck some gum in for good measure. “How’s it going, Petra?” 

“Oh, you know. Not so bad.” The way she’s eyeing my exposed arms up is making me uneasy. “I’m single again.” Okay, so we’re doing too friendly today. 

“You and that last guy broke up?” Sound as disinterested as possible, Levi. Good thing this is a particular talent of mine. 

“Oluo.” Petra sighs. “Yeah, it wasn’t working out. He wanted to settle down, but I just don’t think I’m ready.” One of these days I’m just going to have to come out and say “Petra, I’m not going to sleep with you again”, but I don’t have the strength for that kind of confrontation today. So I just give her a commiserating look. 

“That sucks. Enjoy the rest of your day.” Bit blunt? I pick my stuff up off the counter and turn around. Before I can get three paces away, she calls out to me. 

“Levi, wait. I was thinking it could be nice if we could catch up properly. Just as friends? I’ve been going through…” 

The automatic doors open again. I narrow my eyes in the ensuing brightness to see the face of my saviour. Who else could it be but Eren bloody Jaeger? His Converse, shorts that show off his leg tattoos, a branded bucket hat. Only someone that good-looking could pull off such a ridiculous outfit. He grins when he sees me. 

“Levi! Long time no see, bro.” This is said with a cheeky wink that makes me sweat. His fist bumps my chest, and my heart stops. After assassinating me he looks over my shoulder at Petra. “Hey, Petra. Oh…” Suddenly he’s got a shit-eating grin on his face. “Was I interrupting something here? I can come back later.” The subtlety of a bull in a china shop, I swear. 

“No, that’s alright, Eren.” Petra sounds a little strained. “What were you after? We’re still out of Camels.” I snort. Only posers smoke Camels. Then I look Eren up and down again. If the shoe fits… 

“Nah, I was looking for Shadis. Is he around?” 

Everyone knows Shadis hasn’t gotten up by ten since his divorce, but I guess the inner workings of other people mean absolutely nothing to Eren. Petra enlightens him on this little factoid, and his face drops into an O. 

“Maybe come back at eleven? He should be in by then.” 

Eren trudges out of the store, and I take this cue to make my escape as well. I give Petra a hasty wave before catching up with him, cracking open my Red Bull and taking a sip. Tooth-rottingly foul, and exactly what I need right now. 

“What did you want with Shadis, Eren?” 

He crosses his hands behind his head. “I’m going to ask him for a job.” 

I almost spit my drink out. Surely not. “He hates you.” 

“Levi Ackerman, I thought you were supposed to be in my corner here? Be more supportive of my endeavours, please.” He glances sideways at me. “Can I have a sip of that?” 

The thought of sharing drinks with anyone makes my skin crawl, but he looks so expectant. I reluctantly hand it over. He slurps from it so enthusiastically I’ll be shocked if there’s any left when I get it back. 

“I am supportive. I just think you could expend your energy elsewhere? On someone who didn’t call the police on you a few years ago?” 

He passes the can back. Sure enough, it’s half empty. I tip the last remnants into my mouth, desperately trying to summon life force from it. “That police thing was such an overreaction. Who calls the cops over a few candy bars? Shadis is a paranoid old coot, but I have a plan to win him over. Trust me.” I look over at him. Even under the shadow of the brim of his white hat, his eyes are sparkling. He’s pretty damn irresistible, in my opinion. Suddenly I’m under his spell. Of course he can win Shadis over. This pretty boy could have anything he wanted. I smile at him.

“Alright, I trust you.” 

He nods, supremely satisfied with this answer. “Good.” He kicks a couple of pebbles around the lot with the toe of his shoe. “Can I kill some time at the shop with you until eleven, then?” 

This is probably not a good idea, but once again, I simply can’t find it in myself to say no. “Sure. Just promise me you won’t touch anything.” 

We wander back in through the garage doors. Mike and Erwin both look up from the Toyota they’re working on, peering inquisitively at the newcomer. Mike positively beams. 

“Oi, Jaeger’s back!” 

He dashes over and the two of them do their bro-ey thing, hi-fiving and slapping each other’s backs. Erwin hangs back, looking a little more apprehensive. These are the two standard Shiganshina reactions to Eren. Either you love him for his sparkling personality, or you’re nervous about the amount of havoc he’s liable to wreck on anything he comes across. Erwin’s been burnt once. Eren rear-ended him at a stop sign and wrecked his first car. He whispers in my ear. 

“What’s he doing here, Levi? 

I brush my bangs out of my face. “He’s killing a little time. He’ll be gone by eleven.” 

Erwin frowns. “Just make sure he doesn’t touch anything.” 

A man after my own heart. 

Eren stays true to his promise. Almost. He lies in the back of Rico Breznka’s Lexus while I work underneath it, filling me in on his latest college escapades. He’s so hilarious I drop my spanner on my face a couple of times from laughing too hard. The stories that come out of his mouth are so wild I occasionally wonder whether they’ve been embellished a little. 

“So then, there were three of us left in the club. Me, Jean, this gorgeous girl I’d been crushing on for months. We met this strange man who said he had drinks back at his place. I had a lecture the next day, but I just thought, why not? We get in his van, Levi, get this. You would have died. It had pink flames painted all over it, the most bogan thing we’d ever seen. He ends up driving us an hour out of town. A little further and I could have visited mom and dad. Things got real weird after we picked up the drinks, though. His house was this gross little hovel, mould and shit everywhere, and he pulls out a crack pipe.” 

“Eren!” 

He pokes his head under the car to look at me. “I know! Not safe! So we stole the drinks and ran for our lives. Three hour walk back to the city, but it was fun. We had vodka. Got back home at seven, and I made it to my lecture. I was wasted. It helped Derrida make sense, though. Never read any of his work sober after that.” 

I cackle. “Maybe that tip will help me make sense of the shit you talk about.” I pause to think about this statement. “Probably not. Remember that time we had one too many gins at dinner last year and you read Simulacra and Simulation to me? Sent me to sleep.” 

He laughs. “That’s right! Wasn’t the best starter for you, now I look back. Should have tried some Clifford the Big Red Dog or something.” 

I aim a kick at his face. He dodges, but I flick his hat off with my boot. It falls to the ground. 

“Levi! You have any idea how much that hat cost?” He picks it up and tries to grapple with my foot. He’s halfway pulled me out from under the car when Erwin walks up, looking stern as all hell. 

“It’s past eleven, Eren. Didn’t you have somewhere to be?” 

I suddenly feel like a scolded child for being caught in the throes of such rampant unprofessionalism. Eren, on the other hand, doesn’t bat an eye. He beams up at Erwin, still holding onto my leg. 

“Oh shit, you’re right! Sorry man, Levi was distracting me. I’ll be out of your hair.” He leaps out of the back seat. Erwin stares. I wheel out from under the car and follow his gaze. There are dirty Converse footprints all over the inside of the window. Eren tugs his hat on again, and salutes me with a wink. “Wish me luck, guys!” 

And he’s off, tripping over a toolbox as he goes and scattering some of its contents. Erwin sighs deeply. I just pat him on the back. 

Ten minutes later, Mike calls us over to the garage doors. He’s almost in tears from laughter. Shadis is flinging old pallets at Eren as he backs away across the lot, trying to reason with him. Until one grazes his leg, and he tosses it back. Shadis pulls out his phone. The threat is imminent. I start forward to try and intervene before Eren ends up with a criminal record, but luckily he has enough self-preservation to run away. Not before pulling the finger with both hands and shouting a few choice words. Mike’s doubled over. Even Erwin’s grinning. 

“He sure livens things up around here, doesn’t he?” 

I smile at his retreating form. “Yeah, he does.”

* * *

I’m supposed to do a shift at the diner in the evening, but I’m almost catatonic by the time I’ve finished up at the shop. I call in sick. The manager Annie and I share a camaraderie of sorts because we’re both straight-faced, grumpy types, so I like to think she has a soft spot for me, but because she’s a straight-faced, grumpy type, it’s pretty hard to tell. Either way, I’ve taken about two sick days in the last year I’ve worked there, so I think they’re pretty lenient with me at this point. I walk on home, picking up another takeout on the way. Monday’s usually a cooking night, but there’s no way I’m mustering up the energy for it. I smoke outside the shop and chat to a few passers-by. Reiner’s heading in for his shift at Shadis’s, clearly very disappointed that he missed out on the drama with Eren earlier (who Shadis has taken it upon himself to issue a lifetime ban against). Rico parks her car, now clear of footprints, next to me on the sidewalk and complains about the weather. The skies are clearest blue. I just nod along. It’s a relief when my food’s finally ready. I leave her hanging mid-sentence in my eagerness to get away from this negativity. 

The washing’s back out again when I get home, and pleasantly dry. So Kenny must have been in a good enough space to hang it before noon, I think. Pretty solid. Sure enough, he’s upright on the couch with the curtains open. He helps me with the washing basket, and I set out our dinner in front of the TV. He asks me about my day. I tell him about Eren, and he laughs his head off. 

“I always liked that guy.” He says. “He’s bright, though he doesn’t act like it.” 

I nod in agreement. We brainstorm a few possible employment options for him here. I land on a tour guide for hikers, until I remember his terrible sense of direction and envisage many a tourist falling to their deaths off cliffs while he’s distracted by something. Kenny says he’d make a good rent boy, and I cuff him around the head. 

“What?” He chokes on his spring roll as a result of my attack. “He’d be great. He looks like he’s been around the block a few times, with that face.” 

I call him a fucking old pervert, mostly to hide the shameful fact that I’ve imagined Eren around my block on many a hormone-fuelled evening. I glance over at Kenny, piling fried noodles into his mouth like an animal. Has he ever picked up on how I feel about Eren? He hasn’t seen us interacting as much as Carla, but I’m sure I talk about him a lot. I guess it’s probably more about whether Kenny has the capacity to remember. I feel quite fond of him today. I pat him on the back before I go to my room, and proceed to pass out immediately. 

I’m woken when it’s still light by the sound of my phone vibrating madly. It must be about eight, from how low the sun’s disappeared behind the mountains. I make a conscious decision to ignore my caller. I lay my head back down on my pillow. Until they call again. And again. 

“Fuck off, Furlan.” I don’t even need to look at the caller ID. This bastard is such a crappy friend. He knows I’m a message-only kind of person, but he’s determined to train me out of it. Even if I text him, he’ll ring me. Why does he hate me like this? He’s chuckling on the other end. Dickhead. 

“What are you up to?” Not even going to ease me into it, aye? Straight to the point. 

“Sleeping.”

“Lee, it’s seven fifty.” I’m getting so old. “I went to the diner, but they said you called in sick. You alright?” 

I sit up and rub a layer of sweat from the back of my neck. Instant regret. I look around for a towel, and find one on the chair beside my bed. Wipe my hand on that for a second. 

“I lied. I’m just tired. I had a late one.” 

“Anything interesting?”

I can hear what he’s trying to insinuate, but I don’t know why he bothers. I haven’t gotten laid in forever. This town’s too incestuous. “No, more like a series of unfortunate events.” 

“How about I make up for it? Work gave me a crate of beers.” 

“The library gave you beers?” 

One clinks against his teeth as he answers. “Yeah, I covered a few shifts last week. Manager was eternally grateful.” 

“Good for you.” 

“Are you deliberately being painful? Come and drink with me.” 

I knew this was coming. Furlan knows what he’s doing to me right now. I’d drink at the drop of a hat. I’d march through a blizzard for a bottle of whiskey. Beer’s second-rate, but walking a few minutes across town is still pretty worth in my opinion. Never mind I’m dog-tired. I try to put up a little show of resistance. “I’m sleepy. I have work tomorrow.” 

He laughs. He knows he’s got me already. I’m on the hook, just reel me in. “We’ll just have a couple.” 

He’s a filthy liar, but I love him for it. “Sure. I’ll be over in ten.” 

A quick shower and an outfit change later, and I’m out the door. I’ve tried to look how Eren did today - denim shorts, baggy tee over a long sleeve, a silver chain. Leave the hat, though. Hat hair is not my friend. I try to imagine tattoos like his on my lower legs. My virgin skin recoils at the thought of needles. Even the twigs swiping at me on the overgrown path itch and sting. I bend down to scratch at them for a moment. Furlan’s sitting in our favourite spot by the lakefront, under a big pine tree. The sun’s still obscured from our angle, but it lights up the lake in pinks and yellows. It’s so gorgeous. I look at Furlan’s crate. It’s huge, and stacked. All this beauty around me is making me want to shed a tear. He cracks one, and pushes it towards me. That’s my best friend. 

He rests his chin on the top of his bottle and grins. “Haven’t caught up properly in ages.” We talked at Issy’s on the weekend, but that was actual bedlam. No conducive conversation to be had when high schoolers are throwing up all around you.

I take a long sip of my drink. It’s not bad, actually. “I’ve been working. So have you.” 

He hums in agreement. If there’s anything Furlan and me have in common, it’s our work ethic. We’re overtime boys. That’s why I’ll see Is more often than I see him, even though I love and cherish them equally. “Yeah. It’s been busy. What’s new?” 

I tell him about how Kenny’s been doing this week. It’s nice to unload, for a little while. But then he starts asking too many practical, problem-solving questions, and I have to change subject abruptly. My interruption startles him, until he processes what I’ve said. 

“Eren’s back?” He laughs just like Issy did. “To be honest, I’m hardly surprised. We all knew it was going to happen one day, yeah? He’s such a wildcard, but this behaviour is typical.” 

“Grisha was so mad. I thought he would drown him in the pool.” 

He smiles, picking at the label on his bottle. “I wonder if Bella will be the same with college. She exudes that manic Jaeger energy too. Maybe she picked it up off him.” 

Furlan’s funny with nicknames. He calls me Lee, which I’m assuming he picked up from Kenny when we were kids. My name is already quite short, so I really don’t see the need for it, but it doesn’t bother me. Bella’s different. She’s Is, Issy, Isabel if she’s in trouble. Absolutely no idea where he pulled that one out from. She hated it at first. It still makes her grumble, but she puts up with it begrudgingly. 

“I reckon she will. They’re fucking psychos, the Jaegers. The lot of them.” My first beer’s done - I pop a second. Are we seeing a problem here yet? Surely not. 

Six later, it’s a bit of an issue. I’ve smoked so many cigarettes, my tastebuds are numb. Furlan, the smartest person in the entire world, is looking at me with eyes like a dopey sloth. I hate to think what state my face is in right now. I feel relaxed as fuck, if a little bloated. We’re enjoying a little quiet moment together after a sustained giggling fit about God knows what. And I’m thinking about confessing. 

I don’t know why I’ve never told Furlan about my crush on Eren. I know why I haven’t told Issy - she’s far too close. Furlan keeps my secrets. He never told Is about Kenny being away in rehab, just because I asked him not to. He’s loyal to a fault. And it’s not a homophobia thing either, because he has a few gay uncles and aunties he grew up with. Essentially, he’s the chillest dude. I think the fear was more internal. For so long now, I’ve been imagining that I’ll just get over it. That it’s some weird, misplaced teenage shit. I think saying it out loud would have made it feel too real, and I haven’t been prepared. But every time Eren comes back, my feelings slap me around the face like freezing cold hands. Every hit is punctuated by the words YOU ARE IN LOVE, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER. And this time, his return feels more final. I don’t think he’ll be heading back off for a long while. The college bug has well and truly left his system. Maybe it’s time to stop pining, and start dealing with these feelings in a healthy way. I try to imagine what Furlan will say, and then swiftly realise I’m wasting my time because he’s sitting right in front of me. Why not find out? 

The beer has made me bold. Furlan has launched into a tirade about folks who don’t understand the Dewey Decimal System, but I don’t have time for that shit right now. I have drunken feels, and they must be heard. 

“I’m in love with Eren.” 

He titters. Then he cackles. He full on howls, and then takes another sip. “You’re so funny, Lee. Tell another one.” I look him dead in the eyes, and shake my head. It’s not a joke. This is real life. My stomach knots as I watch him process the information properly. He frowns. His mouth drops open. It closes, then opens again for a healthy dose of beer. Alright, now he’s chugging. Is the news really chug-worthy? It’s been my objective truth for so long, I don’t have any handle on it. He splutters a little upon reaching the end of his bottle. 

“You.” His black sleeve wipes beer off his stubble. “You. Levi Ackerman. Love Eren? Eren Jaeger.” 

Is he stupid? I nod very very slowly just for him. “Yes.” 

Suddenly he looks contemplative. “Really? Since when?” 

I take another big sip. “I don’t really know.” I ponder this as he watches me intently. “A long time. You remember Issy’s twelfth birthday?” 

He nods. 

“Carla was serving ice cream. There were two flavours. Chocolate, and the worst flavour on the planet.”

Furlan fills in for me. “Yes. Vanilla.” 

Thank God for friends who’ve learned up on your idiosyncrasies. “I hate vanilla. I think it’s the pits. It is what they serve to people in the depths of Hell to punish them for living sinful lives. It is truly so bland.” 

“Levi, I know this. Get to the point.”

Where was I again? Oh. “Eren made a huge deal about hating vanilla this one day because he’s a drama queen. I was a little more low key about it because I’m a normal human being, so Carla never picked it up. There were only two chocolate scoops. One for the birthday girl, one for Eren. I had a sad vanilla plate, which I felt sick to my stomach about, but I was going to suck it up. Everyone was milling about in the lounge, and Eren pulled me aside. He said, Levi.” Am I getting teary-eyed? Shit, I must be drunk. This nostalgia wave is heavy. “Levi, let’s swap. I was truly nonplussed so I just said no. He told me he only staged a fuss so he could get the chocolate ice cream for me because he knew I was too polite to fight the other kids for it.”

I feel vulnerable telling this, now. I glance at Furlan. He’s listening intently. 

“I was going through such shit with Kenny. The power wasn’t on at our house, and there was a cold snap. Eren would have been sixteen or so. Maybe Carla and Grisha talked about it with him, but I don’t think so. I don’t know, I feel like he just picked up a vibe and wanted to do something nice for me. It meant a lot. And I just… Thought he was an amazing person, I guess. I’ve thought so ever since. He’s erratic as hell, but he has these moments of intuition that more than make up for it.” 

Furlan wipes his eyes. It takes me a moment to register. I start laughing. “Mate, are you crying?”

He wipes them again on beer-soaked sleeves. “Shut the fuck up, you asshole! I’m having a moment here, okay!” He sniffs, then drinks. “I’ve never seen you look like that before, and it’s really sweet. That story warms my heart. I think I’m falling in love with Eren too.” 

I boot him under the table, and he yelps. “Get out of here.” We both chuckle. Last beers, for sure. We’re getting silly. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” 

I shrug. “Just never really came up, I guess. I didn’t think it would come to anything. I still don’t. I thought I might feel a bit better if I told you.” 

He grins. “And do you?” 

The trees rustle over our heads. I look up and watch the branches. The world’s spinning a little, but I like it. 

“Maybe.” This rings true, for now. I’m light as air. Furlan lets out a deep sigh. 

“I love Bella.” 

What? Who does this guy think he is? 

“Trying to upstage my confession now, eh? Not cool.” 

The horizon line takes a moment to right itself when I meet his eyes. It’s dark now, the only lighting we have a streetlamp in the distance that casts a soft glow over us. Furlan’s staring at me with his chin resting on a fist, looking glum as hell. Wait a minute. My turn to chug. 

“You’re serious?”

He nods sincerely. My life flashes before my eyes. It’s jigsaw pieces falling into place. 

“I knew.” Until I said this out loud, it wasn’t true. Now it is. Does that make any sense? Of course he loves her. It’s like what Carla said about me and Eren. Furlan always watches her. He’s always nice to her. I am too, but not like that. It’s like he’s extra gentle, which says a lot for such a big softy. Now I’m just full of questions. 

“Why haven’t you done anything about it? She’d be into it for sure.” All of the boundaries between me and Eren - gender, age, family ties, his good looks and general A-list charisma that makes me look absolutely tragic in comparison - don’t exist for Furlan and Issy. So why not go for it? God, if I were him, and Eren was a close female friend a year younger than me, I’d have made approximately one hundred moves by now. I wouldn’t just be sitting here on a park bench, looking sorry for myself. 

He breathes out like it’s his last. It rattles in his chest. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lee, but I always thought she was yours.” 

My lip curls. Gross. “No way, dude. You know she isn’t. It’s not like that.” 

He looks up at me under his bangs. “Not for you.” 

Okay, we’re definitely getting silly. “She’s not into me, Furlan. We sleep in the same bed, for Christ’s sake. I’ve seen her pick her nose. We shared a cabin when we had food poisoning. She tells me who she sleeps with, and doesn’t hold back on the gory details. We’re family.” 

“You and Eren are like family too.” 

He’s got me there, but he hasn’t won this fight. I’m determined to make this point. I adore Furlan, but he’s prone to anxious spiralling and low self-esteem. He needs to cut it out.

“Has she ever said anything to you about liking me?” 

His hand is covering his mouth. He mutters something, but it comes out muffled. “Get your sleeve out of your face, that’s filthy.” 

He glares at me, and moves it. Booze turns him into a child. “No, she hasn’t.” 

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t breathe a silent sigh of relief. “See, there you go. You’ve concocted this.” 

“I haven’t.” 

I reach over the table to cuff him, but I swipe his beer in the process. We watch it empty over the side of the table. Foam gathers in the grass before starting to dissipate. This is probably for the best. I pull out my phone. Fuck. 11:50. Can’t wait for another day from hell tomorrow. 

“Okay, I’ve gotta go. You heading home too?” 

He smiles and nods. Fuck, he looks depressed. I do a couple of trips with our beer bottles, dumping them in the communal trash. Then I face up to him again, desperate to cheer him up. 

“Dude.” Sitting there like a rock. “I’ll talk to her for you.” He turns white as a sheet and opens his mouth to protest. “Chill, not like that. I’ll ask her if she likes me. That’s all. And I’ll tell you what she says.” He’s still wincing, but in a kicked puppy dog way, not a I’m-about-to-hurl-myself-into-the-lake way. Definitely an improvement. “I’ve really gotta head. You all good walking?” 

He stands up and stretches. Wobbles a little, but manages to stay upright. “I’m fine.” Thank the Lord. 

“Text me when you get home, yeah?” 

He shuffles off. Tragic bastard. I feel for him, but this is just silly. No way I’m telling Eren, it’ll just fuel his Levi and Isabel Ackerman comedy bit. I light my last cig for my walk home. I’ve been at the lakefront far too late at night over the past couple of days, performing what feels like therapy. No more. The rest of my week’s gotta be a quiet one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm drunk, which is very much this fic's aesthetic. Please enjoy xx 
> 
> Give it some love if you're feeling it!


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